NOTORIOUS POISONERS
Famous female poisoners--This crime not so prevalent in
Germany as in southern countries--Frau Ursinus--Her early
history--Mysterious deaths of her husband and aunt--Attempted
murder of her man-servant--Arrested and sentenced to
imprisonment for life in the fortress of Glatz--Anna Schönleben
or Zwanziger--Deaths followed her advent into different
families--Arrested at Bayreuth, confessed her guilt and was
condemned to death.
In the early decades of the nineteenth century, when the Napoleonic
wars caused constant conflict and change, crime flourished with rank
growth in most European countries and nowhere more than in the German
states,--both those that remained more or less independent and those
brought into subjection to the French Empire. Whole provinces were
ravaged by organised bands of brigands, such as that which obeyed
the notorious Schinderhannes; travelling was unsafe by all ordinary
roads and communications; thieves and depredators abounded; murderers
stalked rampant through the land; the most atrocious homicides, open
and secret, were constantly planned and perpetrated; swindling and
imposture on a large scale were frequently practised, and crimes of
every kind were committed by all kinds of people in all classes of
society.
Poisoning was not unknown as a means of removal, although it never
prevailed to the same extent as among people of warmer blood. It
never grew into an epidemic affecting whole groups and associations,
but it occurred in individual cases, exhibiting the same features as
elsewhere. This form of feloniously doing to death has ever commended
itself to the female sex. Women are so circumstanced as wives, nurses
and in domestic service that they possess peculiar facilities for
the administration of poison, and so the most prominent poisoners in
criminal history have been women.
A curious instance is to be found in the German records, and the story
may be told in this place as belonging to this period. The murderess
was a certain Frau Ursinus, widow of a privy counsellor who was also
president of a government board. Ursinus was a highly esteemed member
of the upper classes of Berlin. Deep interest attached to this case of
Frau Ursinus from the prominent position occupied by her late husband,
her considerable fortune, her prepossessing person and spotless
reputation, as well as her cultured mind which made her conspicuous in
the society of the Prussian capital. The news, therefore, of her sudden
and unexpected arrest on a criminal charge, caused great consternation
and surprise.
Early in May, Frau Ursinus was at a party, playing whist, when a
footman, evidently greatly perturbed, came in and said that several
police officials were in the anteroom and wished to speak to her.
She rose without manifesting any emotion, put down her cards, excused
herself to her fellow-players for this slight interruption, doubtless
caused by a mistake which would soon be accounted for, and adding
that she hoped soon to return, left the room. She did not, however,
come back to resume her game, and after a few moments of strained
expectation it became known that she had been arrested and taken to
prison on a criminal charge.
Her servant, Benjamin Klein, had complained of not feeling well one day
toward the end of the previous February. His mistress had accordingly
given him a cup of broth and a few days later some currants. These
remedies were of no avail, and he became worse. When, on February 28th,
Frau Ursinus offered him some rice, he refused it, whereupon she threw
it away, a singular proceeding on her part, as he thought, and his
suspicions were aroused that the food she had previously administered
to him had contained something deleterious. He made a strict search in
consequence through his mistress’s apartments, and presently discovered
a powder labelled arsenic in one of the cupboards. This happened on
March 21st. On the following day, Frau Ursinus offered him some plums,
which he accepted but prudently did not taste. Then he confided the
result of his search and his fears to his mistress’s maid, Schley,
who took the plums to her brother, an apprentice in a chemist’s shop,
where they were analysed. The plums were found to contain arsenic and
the master of the establishment immediately laid the information before
the authorities; an inquiry was set on foot, the principal witnesses
were examined, and in the end Frau Ursinus was taken into custody.
These facts came out after the arrest and a good deal more was assumed.
It was rumoured that she had not only poisoned her deceased husband
three years previously, but also her aunt, a spinster called Witte
as well, and a Dutch officer of the name of Rogay. These deaths had
occurred in sequence after that of the privy counsellor.
Frau Ursinus persistently denied all the earlier charges of
administering poison, but admitted the attempts upon her servant,
Klein. A thorough investigation followed, and a number of damning facts
in her past and present life were brought to light.
Sophie Charlotte Elizabeth, the widow Ursinus, was born on May 5,
1760, and was the daughter of the secretary of the Austrian legation,
Weingarten, afterward called Von Weiss. Contemporary historians call
him Baron von Weingarten. He was supposed to have turned traitor to the
Austrian government, and this led to his settling in Prussia and to
his change of name. According to common belief, he had really refused
a tempting offer made to him by the Prussian government to hand over
some important papers, very much wanted. But he was in love, and the
mother of his betrothed, an enthusiastic partisan of Frederick the
Great, managed to abstract the papers from a cupboard. He had to bear
the brunt of this misdeed and voluntarily accepted exile. Charlotte
lived with her parents until her twelfth year, and was then committed
to the care of a married sister in Spandau to be educated. Her parents
were Catholics but she declared herself a Lutheran. Later, the father
and mother being unwilling to countenance a love affair into which
their daughter had been drawn, took up their residence in Stendal.
Here Charlotte became acquainted with her future husband, at that time
counsellor of the Supreme Court, who after a year’s acquaintance,
sought her hand. She did not precisely love this grave, sickly, elderly
man, but she confessed to a sincere liking and was willing to marry
him on account of his many excellent qualities, his position and
his prospects. She was then in her nineteenth year. The pair, after
moving to and fro a great deal, finally settled in Berlin, where Privy
Counsellor Ursinus died on September 11, 1800.
The match had not been happy; husband and wife lived separately; they
were childless and Frau Ursinus was inclined to flirtation, having
taken a strong fancy to a Dutch officer named Rogay. The aged husband
did not seem to disapprove of the attachment, which his wife always
maintained was perfectly platonic, and it was generally believed that
the phlegmatic Dutchman was incapable of the “grand passion.” After
leaving Berlin, probably to escape her influence, Rogay returned and
died there three years before the privy counsellor. When the propensity
of Frau Ursinus to secret poisoning was discovered, the making away
with this Dutch officer was laid to her charge, but she was acquitted
of the crime, and it was indeed sworn by two competent physicians that
Rogay had died of consumption.
Privy Counsellor Ursinus died very suddenly and mysteriously, his
death being in no wise attributed at the time to his chronic ailments.
But when, three years later, the widow came under suspicion, serious
doubts were entertained as to whether she had not poisoned her husband.
Her own account as to the manner of his death only strengthened the
presumption of her guilt. According to her statement, she had given a
small party on September 10th, her husband’s birthday. He was in fairly
good spirits, but had remarked more than once that he feared he was not
long for this life. On retiring to rest, his wife saw nothing wrong
with him, but in the middle of the night his moans and groans awakened
her. An emetic stood handy by the bedside, kept thus in readiness by
the doctor’s order (which the doctor subsequently denied), and Frau
Ursinus wished him to take it, but gave him an elixir instead. As he
did not improve, she tried the emetic and rang up the servants, but
none came; then she sought the porter, desiring him to call them, but
still no one appeared. So she remained alone with her suffering husband
through the entire night. The following morning he was in a very weak
and feeble condition and he died on the afternoon of the same day.
Grave suspicion of foul play was now aroused and Frau Ursinus was
arrested. It was urged against her that she had shown no real desire to
summon the servants; that she made no attempt to call in the doctor;
that the family physician had never prescribed the emetic; why, then,
was it there? A worse charge against the wife was her volunteering the
statement that she kept arsenic to kill rats, a conventional excuse
often made in such cases. And in this case it was put forward quite
unnecessarily, for there were no rats in the house.
Yet there was no definite charge against Frau Ursinus. No motive for
murder could be ascertained. They were by no means bad friends, this
wedded pair. Frau Ursinus might in her secret heart desire to be freed
from the bond that tied her to an infirm old man, and marry another
husband, but she had always appeared grateful to the privy counsellor
and treated him kindly. On the other hand, it was proved that she had
purchased a quantity of arsenic for the purpose of destroying the
fictitious rats. Sufficient doubt existed to justify the exhumation
of the body and proceed to a postmortem examination. No definitely
incriminating evidence was, however, forthcoming. The autopsy was
conducted by two eminent doctors, who could find no positive traces
of arsenic, but there was a presumption from the general condition of
the vital organs and convulsive contraction of the limbs that it had
been used. Three physicians who had attended Herr Ursinus in his last
illness testified that his death resulted from a natural cause, that
of apoplexy of the nerves, and repudiated all idea of arsenic. At this
stage there was a foregone conclusion that Frau Ursinus would be quite
exonerated from the felonious charge.
Suddenly the situation entered upon a new phase. Frau Ursinus was
accused of another and entirely new murder, that of her aunt, a maiden
lady named Witte, who had died at Charlottenburg on the 23d January,
1801, after a short illness. No suspicious circumstances were noted
at the time of her death, but after the arrest of Frau Ursinus, the
possibility of her complicity in this deed took definite shape. A
careful inquiry ensued and the inculpation, amounting to little less
than certainty, was soon established. Again the process of exhumation
was set afoot and there was not the smallest doubt that the deceased
had died from arsenical poisoning. It was equally certain that Frau
Ursinus had administered it.
On her own confession she admitted her arrival at her aunt’s house on
January the 16th. Fräulein Witte was sick and complaining, and her
niece, who professed great affection for her, decided to spend some
little time with her. On the day following the arrival of her niece,
Fräulein Witte’s disorder increased, and she had other disquieting
symptoms. Frau Ursinus now summoned a doctor, stating that she herself
felt so low and depressed that she contemplated suicide and had made
up her mind to take poison. In the meantime, her aunt became more and
more seriously ill. On the 23d of January Frau Ursinus persuaded her to
let another physician be called in, who pronounced the illness to be
unimportant, but when he left it increased. Frau Ursinus watched by her
aunt all night, during the course of which the poor woman died. She was
quite alone with her expiring victim and must have been a witness of
her terrible convulsions. It came out at the trial that on the occasion
of a previous visit to Charlottenburg, Frau Ursinus had written to a
chemist in Berlin for a good dose of poison to destroy the rats in her
aunt’s house. Here again the rats were non-existent.
This pretence was as false as was her insistence on the fact that she
had been in a great state of depression since her husband’s death. This
mental condition and her consequent desire to commit suicide came up
prominently at her trial. She had always affected great sensibility,
wishing to pose as a fragile, delicate person, as she considered robust
health to be vulgar. Yet she was naturally strong and well. No proof
could ever be found that she meant to take her own life. When really
she had most ground for depression, being burdened with a terrible
accusation, and the scaffold loomed threateningly before her, the
undaunted spirit of the woman rose to the occasion and her real and
powerful nature asserted itself. She did not exhibit the smallest sign
of low spirits, but fought on with desperate courage and self-reliance,
disputing every point, lying freely and recklessly in her unshaken
resolve to save life and honour. Her adroitness in defence was greatly
aided by her extraordinary knowledge of the Prussian criminal code.
Very rarely her fortitude deserted her, and she was betrayed into a
strange admission, that if she had really handed poison to her aunt she
must have been out of her mind. The object of this particular murder
was plainly indicated in the fact that she expected a considerable
inheritance from Fräulein Witte. Conviction in this case followed
almost as a matter of course.
Her guilt in attempting the life of the man-servant Klein was never in
doubt, but the motive remained obscure to the very end. One explanation
was offered by Frau Ursinus herself. She denied all wish to kill him
but admitted that she was making an experiment in the operation of
lethal drugs with the idea of ascertaining their effect on herself.
A more plausible reason was that she had at one time made him her
confidant and wished to use him as a go-between in negotiating a
second marriage. They had quarrelled, and Klein was about to leave
her service, which she dreaded, lest he might tell tales and make her
appear ridiculous before the world. She owed him a deep grudge also for
having presumed upon the favour she had shown him. To get rid of so
presumptuous and dangerous a person was enough to move this truculent
poisoner to seek to compass his death. Klein eventually recovered his
health and survived for twenty-three years, living comfortably on a
pension forcibly extracted from Frau Ursinus.
The verdict pronounced upon her was one of “not guilty” as regards
her husband and the Dutch officer Rogay. But she was fully convicted
of having murdered her aunt, Christina Regina Witte, and of several
felonious attempts to poison her servant, Benjamin Klein. Her sentence
was imprisonment for life in a fortress and she endured it in Glatz,
on the frontier of Silesia and Bohemia. From the first she was treated
with excessive leniency and in a way to prove that prison discipline
was then a mere farce in Prussia. She was permitted to furnish and
arrange the quarters allotted to her according to her own taste, and
she spent much time at a comfortable writing table under a well lighted
window. She engaged a lady companion to be with her constantly, and
passing travellers curious to make the acquaintance of a murderess were
allowed to call on her and to listen to her unending protestations of
innocence. She did not always evoke sympathy, and the government was
much abused for its favouritism. A cutting comparison was drawn between
this aristocratic criminal parading the ramparts of Glatz in silks and
satins, and humble offenders who had been condemned for succumbing
weakly to ungovernable rage and who were driven to toilsome labour in
deep ditches, heavily chained and grossly ill-used. Here she acted
the lady of quality, and being possessed of a considerable income,
was able to give parties which were largely attended. At one of these
receptions, it is said that a lady guest on noticing some grains of
sugar sparkling in a salad involuntarily started back. Frau Ursinus
remarking this, said, smiling sarcastically, “Don’t be afraid, it is
not arsenic!”
Her companion who was with her until her death on April 4, 1836, and
never left her, bore witness to her religious resignation in bearing
her physical suffering caused chiefly by a chest complaint. She
remained more or less unconscious for some months, but on the night
before her end her mental faculties returned and she passed away
peacefully. She was the first person to be buried in the Protestant
cemetery which King Frederick William III had given to the evangelical
congregation at Glatz.
A year before her death she had ordered a costly oak coffin. Clad in a
white petticoat, a cap trimmed with pale blue ribbon on her head, her
hands encased in white gloves, on one finger a ring which had belonged
to her late husband and with his portrait on her breast, she lay as
if asleep, an expression of peace upon her unchanged face. Several
carriages, filled with her friends and acquaintances, followed the body
to the grave, which was decorated with moss and flowers, and when the
clergyman had finished his discourse, six poor boys and the same number
of girls, to whom she had shown great kindness, sang a hymn in her
honour. Instead of the sexton, the hands of friends and poor recipients
of the dead woman’s charity filled in the grave and shaped the mound
above it. It was a bitterly cold morning, and yet the cemetery could
hardly contain the people who thronged it.
Thus Frau “Geheimräthin” Ursinus died in the odour of sanctity. Her
many relatives, who greatly needed money, only received one-half of
her fortune; the other half she parcelled out into various bequests
and several pious institutions benefited; and we may thus fairly
conclude that she desired to rehabilitate her accursed name by
ostentatious deeds of charity. She left her gaoler, who had treated her
considerately, five hundred thalers and his daughter a piano. Doctor
Friedham, who had procured the royal favour through which she was
liberated from the fortress, received a substantial legacy.
Another female poisoner in a lower sphere of life, whose lethal
propensities were more strongly developed and more widespread, belongs
to this period and the neighbouring kingdom of Bavaria. The woman, Anna
Schönleben or Zwanziger--her married name--known in criminal history
as the German Brinvilliers, was as noxious as a pestilence, and death
followed everywhere in her footsteps. Never did any human being hunger
more to kill, and revel more wantonly in the reckless and unscrupulous
employment of the means that secret poisoning put at her disposal. Her
extravagant fondness for it was “based upon the proud consciousness of
possessing a power which enabled her to break through every restraint,
to attain every object, to gratify every inclination and to determine
the very existence of others. Poison was the magic wand with which
she ruled those whom she outwardly obeyed, and which opened the way
to her fondest hopes. Poison enabled her to deal out death, sickness
and torture to all who offended her or stood in her way; it punished
every slight; it prevented the return of unwelcome guests; it disturbed
those social pleasures which it galled her not to share; it afforded
her amusement by the contortions of the victims, and an opportunity
of ingratiating herself by affected sympathy with their sufferings;
it was the means of throwing suspicion upon innocent persons and of
getting fellow servants into trouble. Mixing and giving poison became
her constant occupation; she practised it in jest and in earnest,
and at last with real passion for poison itself, without reference
to the object for which it was given. She grew to love it from long
habit, and from gratitude for its faithful services; she looked upon
it as her truest friend and made it her constant companion. Upon
her apprehension, arsenic was found in her pocket, and when it was
laid before her at Culmbach to be identified, she seemed to tremble
with pleasure and gazed upon the white powder with eyes beaming with
rapture.”
We will take up her story when she was a widow of about fifty years
old, resident at Pegnitz and bearing the name of Anna Schönleben. In
1808 she was received as housekeeper into the family of Justice Glaser,
who had for some time previous been living apart from his wife. Shortly
after the beginning of her service, however, a partial reconciliation
took place, in a great measure effected through the exertions of
Schönleben, and the wife returned to her husband’s house. But their
reunion was of short duration, for in the course of four weeks after
her return, she was seized with a sudden and violent illness, of which,
in a day or two, she expired.
After this event, Schönleben quitted the service of Glaser and was
received in the same capacity into the household of Justice Grohmann,
who was then unmarried. Although only thirty-eight years of age, he
was in delicate health and had suffered severely from gout, so that
Schönleben soon gained his favour by the kindly attentions she bestowed
upon his health. Her cares, however, were unavailing; her master
fell sick in the spring of 1809, his disease being accompanied with
violent internal pains of the stomach, dryness of the skin, vomiting,
etc., and he died on the 8th of May after an illness of eleven days.
Schönleben, who had nursed him with unremitting anxiety and solicitude
during his illness and administered all his medicines with her own
hand, appeared inconsolable for his loss and that of her situation.
The high character, however, which she had acquired for her unflagging
devotion and tenderness as a sick nurse, immediately procured her
another post in the family of Herr Gebhard, whose wife was at that time
on the point of being confined. This event took place on the 13th of
May, shortly after the arrival of the new housekeeper, who made herself
particularly useful. Mother and child were thought to be progressing
extremely well when, on the third day after the birth, the lady was
seized with spasms, high temperature, violent thirst, vomiting, etc.
In the extremity of her agony, she frequently exclaimed that they had
given her poison. Seven days after her confinement she expired.
Gebhard, the widower, bereaved and helpless in managing household
affairs, thought it would be prudent to retain the housekeeper in
his service who had been so zealous and assiduous during his wife’s
illness. Some of his friends sought to dissuade him from keeping a
servant who seemed by some fatality to bring death into every family
with which she became connected. The objection arose from mere
superstitious dread, for as yet no accusation had been hinted at, and
Gebhard, a very matter of fact person, laughed at their apprehensions.
Schönleben, who was very obliging, with a great air of honesty,
humility and kindliness, remained in his house and was invested with
almost unlimited authority.
During her residence in the Gebhard household, there were many
circumstances which, although they excited little attention at the
time, were subsequently remembered against her. They will be mentioned
hereafter; for the present, let us follow the course of events and the
gradual growth of suspicion. Gebhard had at last, by the importunity
of his friends, been persuaded to part with his housekeeper and did
so with many regrets. Schönleben received her dismissal without any
remark beyond an expression of surprise at the suddenness of his
decision. Her departure for Bayreuth was fixed for the next day, and
she busied herself with arranging the rooms, and filled the salt box
in the kitchen, remarking that it was the custom for one who went
away to do this for her successor. On the next morning, as a token
of her good-will, she made coffee for the maids, supplying them with
sugar from a paper of her own. The coach which her master had been
good-natured enough to procure for her was already at the door. She
took his child, now twenty weeks old, in her arms, gave it a biscuit
soaked in milk, caressed it and took her leave. Scarcely had she been
gone half an hour when both the child and servants were seized with
violent retching, which lasted some hours and left them extremely weak
and ill. Suspicion being now at last fairly awakened, Gebhard had the
salt box examined, which Schönleben had so officiously filled. The salt
was found strongly impregnated with arsenic; in the salt barrel also,
from which it had been taken, thirty grains of arsenic were found mixed
with about three pounds of salt.
It was now clear to every one that the series of sudden deaths which
had occurred in the families in which Schönleben had resided, had
been due to arsenical poison, and it seemed extraordinary that this
circumstance had been so long overlooked. It came to light now that
while she was with Gebhard two friends who had dined with her master
in August, 1809, were seized after dinner with the same symptoms of
vomiting, convulsions, spasms and so forth, which had attacked the
servants on the day of Schönleben’s departure, and again, had shown
themselves in the condition of the unfortunate mistress when she died.
Also Schönleben had on one occasion given a glass of white wine to
a servant who had called with a message, which had produced similar
effects; the attack was indeed so violent as to oblige him to remain
in bed for several days. On another occasion she had taken a lad of
nineteen, Johann Kraus, into the cellar, where she had offered him a
glass of brandy which he tasted, but perceiving a white sediment in it,
declined to swallow. And again, one of her fellow servants, Barbara
Waldmann, with whom Schönleben had had frequent quarrels, after
drinking a cup of coffee was seized with exactly the same symptoms as
the others. Last of all, it was remembered that at a party which Judge
Grohmann gave, he sent her to the cellar for some jugs of beer, and
after partaking of it, he and all his guests--five in number--were
almost immediately seized with the usual spasms.
The long interval which had elapsed since the death of most of these
individuals rendered it improbable that an examination of the bodies
would throw any light upon these dark transactions. It was resolved,
however, to put the matter to the test, and the result of this tardy
inspection was more decisive than might have been expected; all the
bodies exhibited in a greater or less degree traces of arsenic. On the
whole, the medical authorities felt themselves justified in stating
that the deaths of at least two of the three individuals had been
occasioned by poison.
Meantime Schönleben had been living quietly at Bayreuth, quite
unconscious of the storm gathering round her. Her finished hypocrisy
even led her, while on the way there, to write a letter to her late
master reproaching him with his ingratitude at dismissing one who had
been a protecting angel to his child; and in passing through Nürnberg,
she dared to take up her residence with the mother of her victim,
Gebhard’s wife. On reaching Bayreuth, she again wrote to Gebhard vainly
hoping he would take her back into his service, and she made a similar
unsuccessful attempt on her former master Glaser. While thus engaged,
the warrant for her arrest arrived and she was taken into custody on
October 19th. When searched, three packets were found in her pocket,
two of them containing fly powder and the third arsenic.
For a long time she would confess nothing; it was not till April 16,
1810, that her courage gave way, when she learned the result of the
examination of the body of Frau Glaser. Then, weeping and wringing
her hands, she confessed she had on two occasions administered poison
to her. No sooner had she admitted this than she fell to the ground
in convulsions “as if struck by lightning,” and was removed from the
court. Strange to say, although she knew that by her confession she had
more than justified her condemnation to death, she laboured to the very
last to gloss over and explain the worst features of her chief crimes,
and in spite of ample evidence, denied all her lesser offences. It was
impossible for her false and distorted nature to be quite sincere, and
when she told a truth she at once associated with it a lie.
When Anna Schönleben fell into the hands of justice, she had already
reached her fiftieth year; she was of small stature, thin and deformed;
her sallow and meagre face was deeply furrowed by passion as well as
by age, and bore no trace of former beauty. Her eyes were expressive
of envy and malice and her brow was perpetually clouded, even when
her lips moved to smile. Her manner, however, was cringing, servile
and affected, and age and ugliness had not diminished her craving for
admiration. Even in prison and under sentence of death, her imagination
was still occupied with the pleasing recollections of her youth. One
day when her judge visited her in prison, she begged him not to infer
what she had been from what she was; that she was “once beautiful,
exceedingly beautiful.”
Her life history antecedent to the events just recorded has been
constructed from trustworthy sources and her own autobiography which
fills eighteen closely written folio sheets. Born in Nürnberg in
1760, she had lost her parents before she reached her fifth year.
Her father had possessed some property and until her nineteenth
year she remained under the charge of her guardian, who was warmly
attached to her and bestowed much care upon her education. At the age
of nineteen she married, rather against her inclination, the notary
Zwanziger, for that was her real name. The loneliness and dulness of
her matrimonial life contrasted very disagreeably with the gaieties
of her guardian’s house, and in the many absences of her husband,
who divided his time between business and the bottle, she passed her
time in reading sentimental novels such as the “Sorrows of Werther,”
“Pamela” and “Emilia Galeotti.” Her husband, with her help, soon ran
through her small fortune, which was wasted in extravagant entertaining
and in keeping up an establishment beyond their means. They sank into
wretched impecuniosity, with a family to support and without even
the consolation of common esteem. She took to vicious methods and
presently her husband died, leaving his widow to follow the career of
an adventuress.
During the years that intervened between the death of her husband and
the date on which she first entered Glaser’s service, her life had
been one long course of unbridled misconduct. Absolutely devoid of
principle, she associated with others as vicious as herself; she became
a wanderer on the face of the earth and for twenty years never found
a permanent resting place or a sincere friend. Fiercely resenting the
evil fortune that had constantly befallen her, she chafed with bitter
hatred against all mankind; her heart hardened; all that was good
in her nature died out and she became a prey to the worst passions,
consumed always with uncontrollable yearning to better her condition
by defying all divine and human laws. When and how the idea of poison
first dawned on her, her confessions did not explain, but there is
every reason to believe that it was before she entered Glaser’s
service. Determined as she was to advance her own interests, poison
seemed to furnish her at once with the talisman she was in search
of; it would punish her enemies and remove those who stood in her
way. From the moment she met Glaser, she resolved to secure him as
her husband. That he was already married was immaterial, for poison
would be a speedy form of divorce. To bring her victim within range of
her power, she schemed to effect the reconciliation so successfully
accomplished, and directly after Frau Glaser returned home, Zwanziger
began her operations. Two successful doses were administered, of which
the last was effectual. While she was mixing it, she confessed, she
encouraged herself with the notion that she was preparing for herself
a comfortable establishment in her old age. This prospect having been
defeated by her dismissal from Glaser’s service, she entered that of
Grohmann. Here she sought to revenge herself upon such of her fellow
servants as she happened to dislike by mixing fly powder with the
beer,--enough to cause illness but not death. While at Grohmann’s home
she had also indulged in matrimonial hopes; but all at once these were
defeated by his intended marriage with another. She tried to break
this engagement off, but ineffectually, and Grohmann, provoked by her
pertinacity, decided to send her away. The wedding day was fixed;
nothing now remained for Zwanziger but revenge, and Grohmann fell a
victim to poison.
From his service Zwanziger passed into that of Gebhard, whose wife
shared the fate of Grohmann, for no other reason, according to her
own account, than because that lady had treated her harshly. Even
this wretched apology was proved false by the testimony of the other
inmates of the house. The true motive, as in the preceding cases, was
that she had formed designs upon Gebhard similar to those which had
failed in the case of Glaser, and that the unfortunate lady stood in
the way. Her death was accomplished by poisoning two jugs of beer from
which Zwanziger from time to time supplied her with drink. Even while
confessing that she had poisoned the beer, she persisted in maintaining
that she had no intention of destroying her mistress; if she could have
foreseen that such a consequence would follow, she would rather have
died herself.
During the remaining period from the death of Gebhard’s wife to that of
her quitting his service, she admitted having frequently administered
poisoned wine, beer, coffee and other liquors to such guests as she
disliked or to her fellow servants when any of them had the bad luck
to fall under her displeasure. The poisoning of the salt box she also
admitted; but with the strange and inveterate hypocrisy which ran
through all her confessions, she maintained that the arsenic in the
salt barrel must have been put in by some other person.
The fate of such a wretch could not, of course, be doubtful. She was
condemned to be beheaded, and listened to the sentence apparently
without emotion. She told the judge that her death was a fortunate
thing for others, for she felt that she could not have discontinued
poisoning had she lived. On the scaffold, she bowed courteously to the
judge and assistants, walked calmly up to the block and received the
blow without shrinking.